March 2009 Indie Next List

“The Kindly Ones is as fierce and unrelenting as any novel in my recent experience. This account of a former SS officer can be brutal and disturbing, but there is no doubt the effect will be visceral and provocative. If you are looking for a 'good read,' skip it, but if you appreciate an author willing to risk going to the edge pick it up.”
— Bill Cusumano, Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, MI
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"Simply astounding. . . . The Kindly Ones is unmistakably the work of a profoundly gifted writer." -- Time

A literary prize-winner that has been an explosive bestseller all over the world, Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones has been called "a brilliant Holocaust novel... a world-class masterpiece of astonishing brutality, originality, and force," and "relentlessly fascinating, ambitious beyond scope," by Michael Korda (Ike, With Wings Like Eagles). Destined to join the pantheon of classic epics of war such as Tolstoy's War and Peace and Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, The Kindly Ones offers a profound and gripping experience of the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust.

Praise For The Kindly Ones…

“The force and clarity with which Littell renders the physical realities of war and mass murder are simply astounding. . . . The Kindly Ones is unmistakably the work of a profoundly gifted writer.” -Time magazine

“A great work of literary fiction, to which readers and scholars will turn for decades to come.” -Antony Beevor, The Times (London)

“The meticulously realistic main plot of The Kindly Ones is brilliantly organized and written…” -BookForum

“Unquestionably brilliant…Littell is a gifted writer and what he achieves…is unparalleled…The novel [is] scrupulous in its period details and…generous in its scope” -The Nation

“An extraordinarily powerful novel…. Above all, it is a sophisticated exploration of issues of morality, evil and luck… The novel as a whole brilliantly shows how ‘ordinary men’ become killers.” -The Observer (London)